He is sin and satisfaction, lust and damnation, a lethal weapon created from greed. A human soldier injected with alien DNA, he is a legend. Untamable, he has walked on the dark side, and returned to the light. Women desire him, hungry for his raw passion. Men envy his power; they lust to control him. But there is no controlling a creature such as he, no taming the primal fires within him. Michael revels in his superior strength and trains as a fighting machine. But when he encounters scientist Cassandra Powell, he begins to long for a more human connection...
I was really intrigued by the premise of The Legend of Michael. Unfortunately, while I finished the novel, it was slow-going to get there with detours that I felt detracted from the romance aspect.
We're introduced to Cassandra Powell first. She's a scientist whose father is a general and commander of the GTECHs, a group of alien DNA enhanced soldiers. She's been brought in to study and document the GTECHs and their mutations for research and testing purposes. Cassandra and Michael meet in the hallway of the base her first day on the job, and they're instantly attracted to one another. She reluctantly agrees to coffee, then we skip ahead of their next four dates. There is a six-month time skip, and Cassandra and Michael are in a serious romance. Due to his genetics, he can bond with a woman -- which he does with Cassandra -- though he swears her to secrecy. It's a good thing, too, because there's a war brewing within the GTECHs, and Michael abandons Cassandra to fight on the side of evil.
Skip ahead two years...
The Legend of Michael is definitely an action-based plot with the romance between Cassandra and Michael taking a secondary status in the narrative. The fact that we don't see the romance build between them is very frustrating.
The over-the-top villains are an ode to comic books, as the bioweapon is called Green Lantern and its antidote Red Dart, but I didn't enjoy them. Adam and Ava and their motley crew could have been a serious psychological threat, despite the fact that Michael spent two years as Adam's right-hand man. They were almost Dr. Evil-ish in their appearances within the novel. There were secondary characters I'd have rather learned more about, such as Caleb, though it seems he will not have his own book within the trilogy.
Perhaps I had too high hopes going into this series as I've enjoyed Ms. Jones' Harlequin Blazes. Ultimately, it was a struggle to finish this book.
(A very special thank you to Sourcebooks Casablanca who provided me with an ARC of The Legend of Michael.)
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